Solstice
by Seph Meadowes
Summary: It is summer, it is the solstice the crowd is cheering, the crowd is laughing in detail permanently, seriously without thought. Alec-centric. Eventual Alec/Renesmee. Complete.


_It is summer, it is the solstice the crowd is cheering, the crowd is laughing in detail permanently, seriously without thought.__** - **_**William Carlos**

**

* * *

**

Jane laughs as Alec chases her around the garden, their pants visible in the winter air. All the while their parents watch them from the front porch, their arms around each as they try to shield off the cold. They laugh when Alec finally tackles his sister to the ground, Jane's screams echoing in the large garden as the four year olds wrestle each other on the snow.

* * *

Alec likes to play games with Jane, they play games together and sometimes against one another. It's a constant cat and mouse game of sorts, push and pull, testing the limits. They're aware that it's juvenile and just a tad bit mean but they're fourteen and don't really care. It's fun, so much fun, because everyone else is too ignorant to notice that they're being played with like puppets.

Just like Mary who only blushes as he plays with a lock of her curly hair, twisting the soft strand around his fingers as he whispers compliments saccharinely into her ear. Jane watches all the while, smiling amusedly as he works on his latest dare, just waiting for the moment he slips.

He doesn't of course and he rolls his blue eyes discreetly as Mary giggles.

* * *

Jane has a tendency to crawl into his bed after she's had a nightmare or if she's awakened by Papa and Mama's fighting again. Jane depends on him to hold her when she cries or simply just be there to hold her because it's too cold in her bed. He does it all without complaint because he's the older one and he knows even at the age of five that he has to take care of her. Mama and Papa are too busy shouting at each other to deal with Jane and someone has to be the one to comfort her.

Sometimes, he would put his hands on her ears, trying to make her deaf to it all.

* * *

Alec knows his sister didn't want to admit it but she is used to always having her twin around. Before, she couldn't fall asleep without hearing his breathing or having someone to fight over the sheets with and that are some of the problems she first faces when she moves out of the bedroom they'd been sharing since they were toddlers. But Jane is resilient about her view that sharing a room with your brother at fifteen was more than a little impractical and she finds a way to cope even with the loneliness she sometimes feels in her new room.

There are still nights though when she would sneak back into his room, her small footfalls silent on the carpet as she shakes him awake gently and he moves to give her room. She uses him as a teddy bear, hugging him to her to try and drown out the sounds of their parents arguing.

* * *

The schools that Alec and Jane attend hold a joint party one night and that's when Alec first sees Wynter Haf. She's a very pretty girl with rust-colored curls and warm brown eyes. He only chuckles at her strange name when Jane explains who the girl is and warns him to stay away because she was more than a little odd and there were whispers that her powerful father was organizing some kind of hunting party.

He doesn't mind his sister's advice, the girl is captivating and he thinks that he might already be in love when she doesn't even bat an eyelash as he compliments her dress.

* * *

Alec wakes to the sound of wailing, loud and broken sobs that echo throughout the cold and otherwise quiet house. It is a few minutes before he makes up his mind to get out of his bed and walk the length of the hallway towards the bedroom of his parents. He finds his father crying over his mother's corpse, the blood on her chest staining her white nightgown red. His father is so absorbed in his grief, tears streaming down his cheeks as he sobs, clutching the empty shell of the woman he loves to him like a lifeline.

Alec stands there motionless as he watched the scene before him, a moment or two passes before he steps back and walks back to his room and into his bed. He doesn't sleep.

Jane would come to him at dawn, telling him that Mama and Papa are dead. He takes one look at the bloodied sheets and the gash on his father's wrist before he tells Jane to burn everything.

* * *

At the age of sixteen, Alec is probably too young to probably experience true love but he doesn't think so when Wynter kisses him tenderly and tells him, so sincerely and affectionately, that she loves him. He feels like he's in a bubble of happiness that shields him from all that's gone terribly wrong in his life. He knows he shouldn't feel okay because his parents are gone and his sister's withdrawn herself from the world but Wynter makes him forget with just one look and for a moment, even for some scant seconds, his world is rotating properly on its axis again as if nothing was wrong.

Wynter put him back together and with some irony, she would tear him apart again. She bids him farewell one mundane afternoon, she's in tears and is in a rush, telling him that her father has gone manic with the witch hunts he's leading and that she and her mother have resolved to run away. He begs her, almost falling to his knees in desperation for her to stay but she tells him no and that this had to be done. He tells her that it isn't, that this wouldn't solve anything. She doesn't reply and quietly walks away.

* * *

Alec can tell that Jane is angry, not afraid or sad like she should be. He can tell by the way her spine stiffens, her frowning mouth and the blaze of pure hatred in her blue eyes. He does not know whether to fear her or be amused. But he has no time to think really between the looks and hisses of loathing the crowd are sending at them and the vehement reciting of the priest from the bible about sins against God and eternal damnation.

He only feels a sense of anxiety and detachment, the surrealism of the moment not quiet connecting with his perception of reality. The only things he can focus on are the little things like the chaffing of his wrists on the ropes, the afternoon sun in his eyes making them tear up and the smell of smoke around them.

The priest finishes his reading and the crowd commences to shout things at them, things like 'Devils' and 'Abominations ' and he can hear Jane muttering to herself softly about making them suffer, making them feel so much pain. He vaguely acknowledges the desperation in her voice and he knows that she's only masking her fright with rage because at that moment her dignity is all she has left.

He has no time to comfort her, his mind is a haze of memories and faces that he longs to forget. He thinks that he just might get his wish as they set start the fire, the flames are eagerly licking at his skin and he hears Jane scream loudly beside him, terrified, sad, and angry. He does not feel any pain at all; he's numb to everything, having already escaped the chains of the earth and all of its evil inhabitants.

His mind is solely left on Wynter, the innocence on her face and her sweet smile as she tells him how much she loves him.

* * *

"Are you okay?" Renesmee Cullen asks him as he snaps out of his stupor. Her bronze curls and chocolate eyes are almost painful to look at after the barrage of memories that assaulted him, ones he's been hiding for decades. It feels like a cruel joke of some sorts, like one of Jane's sadistic little traps.

"I'm fine," He replies gruffly as he tries not to look at her. Her face is almost mocking, so close to a face of a girl long dead by now. A replica but only a pale imitation because even if they look _exactly_ the same from the smile to the way their voice sounds, this girl is not his Wynter.

* * *

"Why do you always look at me like that?"

Renesmee is angry at him for some reason again, he's not quite sure why but he's long gotten used to her mood swings. Irritation flares in her chocolate eyes and her full mouth pouting in discontent, she looks so beautiful when she was like this and he couldn't help but try to inspire it as much as he can.

"Like what?"

She rolls her eyes at him; it was a habit he knew she developed around him. It was how she deals with his_ immaturity_. The irony of him being the older one not lost on him.

"Like you expect me to leave at any moment?"

He didn't even blink. "Well, aren't you?"

She freezes instantly, eyes staring at him disbelievingly, trying to understand his way of thinking. Her mouth moves a few times as if to formulate words but it's futile. He stiffens in his seat, trying all the while to look indifferent, as he waits for her to walk away as he's been expecting her to since the first moment she told him that she loves him.

"No."

The conviction in her voice is unmistakable and he stares at her astonishment. He watches as she threads towards him calmly and takes a seat on his lap, her hand immediately reaching up to play with the hairs at his nape and the other cupping his cheek softly. She captivates him with the gentleness of her movements, the adoration in her eyes and he can't think at all.

"I'm not leaving."

He utters out a very eloquent, "Huh?"

She shakes her head, stubbornly, defiantly as she has always been. "I'm never leaving," And she kisses him chastely, slowly because they did have all the time in the world. Her mouth caresses his for the sweetest of moments. Her lips are as soft as they've always been since the first time he kissed her and he's been addicted since.

He pulls away before the kiss deepens but says nothing, only staring into a face of a girl that both reminded him of his past and is his present. The girl he's been comparing to someone who'd been too scared to fight for anything she wanted. He realizes the unfairness of such a comparison now because his Renesmee is definitely like that.

Her eyebrows furry in confusion, eyes still locked on his. "Is there something on my face?" Her hand reaches up to wipe off any dirt and he catches it, gripping it gently in his.

Shaking his head, he pulls her closer. "You're perfect," He murmurs before he makes her moan in between kisses.

* * *

**I know I said I would post this on my birthday but I can't write anything for Dusk at the moment, so I'm posting this to alleviate some of your suffering. **

**Anyway, I got inspired to write about Alec's past for a while now and after reading a scene in a particular novel, the way his parents died was inspired, (aren't you all tired of their parents watching them burn at the stake?) and I got to writing.**

**I tried to incorporate some aspects of Alec's relationship with Jane and some traits they had that might've influenced their abilities when they got changed (i.e. Alec trying to make Jane 'deaf', Jane wanting to cause people pain).**

**Wynter is a variant of "Winter" while Haf means "Summer", I thought it'd be funny to name her as such because there are two type of solstice, winter and summer.**


End file.
